Let me tell you, when what you teach and develop every day has the title "Innovation" attached to it, you reach a point where you tire of hearing about Apple. Without question, nearly everyone believes the equation Apple = Innovation is a fundamental truth--akin to the second law of thermodynamics, Boyle's Law, or Moore's Law. But ask these same people if they understand exactly how Apple comes up with their ideas and what approach the company uses to develop blockbuster products--whether it is a fluky phenomenon or based on a repeatable set of governing principles--and you mostly get a dumbfounded stare. This response is what frustrates me most, because people worship what they don't understand.

I don't want to sound negative but why is this even an article I've read it and it is simply pointing out the bloody obvious. If you're sitting there and thinking, "I never thought of it like that" then god help you and your organisation.

The lack of fit, finish, polish and refinement is something that I see time and time again; people thinking that 'good enough is near enough' but when the market is given it, the company is chewed up and spat out. It truly is amazing how amateurish so many companies are when it comes to delivering a final product to the market - you'd swear they were organisations run by 15 year olds with bad eye sight and in a rush to get home to play their XBox based on how little time is spent on the niceties.

Be extremely cautious when using the "obvious" word. Everything is obvious when explained in a clean and simple fashion, and when you're thinking about it right now and reading it currently.

Many people think that usability is common sense when making websites. And that's precisely why there are so many crappy websites around. The rules of usability can be summed up in 12 simple, "obvious" words. But actually thinking about these words in the design process, constantly challenging your inventions against them, that's far from being obvious. The human brain can only keep concentrated on one thing at a time.